Clayton Kershaw’s Major League Baseball career might be over, but the future Hall of Fame pitcher isn’t quite done playing yet.
In what figures to be his swan song to the sport, Kershaw will represent Team USA at this spring’s World Baseball Classic, USA Baseball announced Thursday. It will mark Kershaw’s first time participating in a WBC, after he was forced to withdraw from the 2023 tournament because of issues securing required insurance coverage.
Last September, the 37-year-old Kershaw announced that he would retire at the end of the 2025 season, drawing a decorated 18-season career spent entirely with the Dodgers to a close.
Kershaw went out on top, finishing the regular season with an 11-2 record and 3.36 ERA before making two appearances in the Dodgers’ postseason run to a second-consecutive World Series –– including his memorable escape from a 12th-inning jam in Game 3 of the Fall Classic, which proved to be the final appearance of his MLB career.
Thursday’s announcement, however, ensures that last October won’t be Kershaw’s final time pitching competitively.
After never seriously considering WBC participation for most of his career, Kershaw will get an opportunity in this year’s WBC that was denied to him in 2023. That spring, Kershaw was set to represent Team USA for the first time in his career, something he repeatedly stated he was “really excited about.”
But he ultimately had to back out after he was unable to get insurance, which is required for all WBC participants under MLB contract (because of the injury risk the tournament poses) and can often be denied for players with long injury histories (including Kershaw, who had battled back and elbow issues in the years before that tournament).
“It just didn’t work out,” a disappointed Kershaw said at the time. “I really wanted to do it.”
Now, three years later, the three-time Cy Young Award winner and likely first-ballot Hall of Famer will get that chance, returning to the mound one last time before officially, and finally, retiring for good.
